The "Middle East and Terrorism" Blog was created in order to supply information about the implication of Arab countries and Iran in terrorism all over the world. Most of the articles in the blog are the result of objective scientific research or articles written by senior journalists.

From the Ethics of the Fathers: "He [Rabbi Tarfon] used to say, it is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, but you are not exempt from undertaking it."

Friday, July 27, 2018

It's a tense time on both the northern and southern borders of Israel

The surreal effect of the latest happenings on
Israel’s Gaza and northern fronts is caused by at least six cooks
stirring two volatile broths, of which the IDF is the least
pro-active. Because the IDF was not alert to a new threat after Sgt.
Aviv Levy was killed by a sniper last Friday, a second officer, a
21-year old field commander of the same Givati Brigade , was injured on
Wednesday, July 25, in the same Kissufim sector, by a Hamas sniper
bullet, The soldiers were drawn by a gang of unruly children at the
border force and when they approached to send them home, the sniper
lurking in the background targeted the officer. The IDF reacted with an
assorted array of jets, drones, tanks and artillery against 7 Hamas
positions. Also activated were communications with Gen. Abbas Kemal,
director of Egyptian intelligence, in a bid to hold off the inevitable
Hamas rocket assault. The familiar ritual then evolved: Hamas launched 9
rockets and mortar rounds against the next-door Israeli communities and
Hof Ashkelon, one was intercepted by Iron Dome – and the latest of
umpteen similar rounds was over, the point being that the initiative for
the next round remained squarely in the hands of the Palestinian
terrorist group,

Hamas’ strategists had meanwhile calculated that
snipers constituted an inexpensive weapon in terms of cost to pocket and
life, much like balloon bombs and kites; only three of its operatives
were killed this time round, and Israeli strikes were still targeting
empty Hamas compounds. The Palestinian terrorists found that they can
keep large parts of the southern Israeli population under siege
long-term by these primitive tactics at little cost to themselves, while
also picking off at leisure IDF officers by luring them to the border
fence.

The equation on the northern front is complicated by the number of cooks
and wildly fluctuating equations. The IDF’s air defense system
evidently needs more work, as was illustrated by its non-response to the
landing of two ground-to-ground Grad rockets in the Sea of Galilee on
Wednesday, July 25, at peak holiday season. They were fired from the
Syrian-Israeli-Jordanian border intersection 8 km away. Sirens were
triggered over the lake and the Golan only after one of the rockets
exploded in the water near the eastern shore. By a miracle, no one was
hurt. IDF air defense missile systems missed them two days after two
missiles of Israel’s innovative David’s Sling failed to connect with
Syrian SS-21 surface missiles flying from eastern Syria towards the
Golan. Still, the next day, Patriot batteries were effective in
shooting down a Syrian Sukhoi-24 two kilometers inside Israel, after
downing a Syrian drone.

The Grads which dropped into the Kinneret were fired by the Khalid Ibn
Walid branch of ISIS, which is being hammered by Syrian and pro-Iranian
allied forces in a pocket they have held for years near the Yarmuk
inside the border intersection just across from Israel.

This ruse was staged to lure the IDF into pinning
the blame on, and attacking, the Syrian army, and so drawing off the
counter-ISIS assault. The ruse did not work. The IDF identified ISIS as
the source of the rocket fire and struck back, after refraining for
years to attacking them. For this, the IDF drew praise from an
unexpected source. The Russian defense ministry said that a strike
on Israeli territory on Wednesday was made from Daesh [ISIS] positions and that
the response from Israel had hit terrorists’ missile launchers
in Quneitra. The ministry expressed gratitude to the Israeli Defense
Forces for the counterattack. “Russian armed forces’ command in Syria
used the existing communication channels to thank the IDF leadership
for killing terrorists and stopping a massive provocation,” the ministry
said in a statement.

However, DEBKAfile’s military sources point to the
surreal consequence for Israel of the IDF’s counter-ISIS operation. It
enabled Syrian, Hizballah and other pro-Iranian forces to capture the
terrorist enclave and reach a point close to the Sea of Galilee. What’s
wrong with that equation?

debkaFileSource: https://www.debka.com/israels-two-fronts-explode-idf-officer-injured-in-gaza-russia-praises-idf-attack-on-isis-that-allows-syria-hizballah-to-reach-kinneret/ Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter